An 80-year-old who allegedly boasted of hunting down civilians has been accused of being a ‘weekend sniper’ who paid to shoot people in Sarajevo during the city’s siege in the 1990s.
The unnamed former metalworker and truck driver from Vento has become the first suspect in an investigation launched in November following allegations of ‘human safari’ sniper trips during the Balkan wars.
More than 11,000 civilians were killed during the 1992 to 1995 siege, when Bosnian Serb forces surrounded Sarajevo and fired on the city from the hills above it.
The elderly man, who has been charged with voluntary manslaughter, is believed to have been heard saying ‘I conducted a manhunt’, while boasting about his shooting spree at defenceless civilians in Sarajevo, according to Corriere Della Sera.
This allegedly included women, elderly people, and children.
The suspect is set to be questioned on Monday by prosecutor Alessandro Gobbis, who will ask him to prove that his frequent trips to the former Yugoslavia during the war years were solely for work and not to kill on ‘human safaris.’
According to Italian media, the ‘right-wing’ man was also considered to be a firearm enthusiast after a police search of his home uncovered two pistols, four rifles, and a carbine.
Survivors of the Sarajevo massacres in November have called for the death penalty for the sick tourists who allegedly paid to shoot at the civilians in Sarajevo.
Prosecutors acted after Italian journalist and writer Ezio Gavazzeni filed a formal complaint claiming that visitors from Italy, the United States, Russia, and other countries paid Bosnian Serb fighters between £70,000 and £88,000 for trips to sniper positions.
The case also alleges that depraved tourists paid extra to hunt minors, in the long-rumoured ‘human safari’ scheme.
Gavazzeni said he had been inspired to investigate after watching ‘Sarajevo Safari,’ a 2022 documentary by Slovenian filmmaker Miran Zupanic.
The investigation in Italy has reopened painful memories for Sarajevo residents, but many say it could finally bring answers about one of the most disturbing allegations.
The allegations of human safaris were given further attention in 2007, when a former US Marine gave testimony at The Hague detailing the war crimes that were committed during the period.
He described how unarmed civilians were constantly under attack, with the youngest members of families under increased threats of violence.
He also claimed that Sarajevo was filled with tourists who would pay to shoot people.
He said: ‘I had witnessed on more than one occasion personnel who did not appear to me to be locals by their dress, by the weapons they carried, by the way they were being handled, i.e., guided around by the locals.’
The writer also claimed safari-goers dispatched their victims as dispassionately as big game hunters on the African plains and paid up to £200,000 for a weekend ‘shoot’.
In Zupanic’s documentary, a Slovenian man who worked as an intelligence officer for the US said he witnessed foreigners in high power committing crimes against innocent civilians.
He said: ‘These people were certainly not ordinary people. They were people in high positions, protected… people who, after having everything, seek another thrill, saying to themselves: ‘Why shouldn’t I now shoot a child or an adult in Sarajevo and gain another pleasure? I won’t only kill animals.’
Describing what he saw, he added: ‘I had my own binoculars so I could see. After the man fired, the person fell. Most were hit in the chest, because the head is harder.
‘But I also saw a hit to the head. From that, I saw they were very good hunters.’
In December, a key witness at the centre of the investigation died unexpectedly.
Slavko Aleksic, a Bosnian former militia leader, died in the city of Trebinje, despite having been in good health.
Aleksic, 69, commandeered a Jewish cemetery above Sarajevo used by snipers, and according to Serbian lawyer Cedomir Stojkovic, ‘he would have been a crucial witness’ because ‘he could have said who did the shooting and who organised it’.
Croatian investigative journalist Domagoj Margetic added: ‘In November, Aleksic was apparently in good health — and now he has suddenly, and very conveniently, died.’
In October, Serbian president Aleksandar Vucic was also accused of being involved in Sarajevo’s ‘human safari’ sniper trips, an allegation he denies.
A month later, Aleksic gave an interview on Serbian television and insisted the president had had no involvement in sniper activity.
‘Aleksic was alive and well then, did not announce a fatal illness and, on the contrary, said he would testify in favour of Vucic,’ Margetic said.
On December 12, Aleksic told a radio show that he was in a hospital in Belgrade, according to Margetic, after reportedly being taken from Bosnia to Belgrade’s military hospital by Serbia’s secret service.
Meanwhile, Stojkovic said: ‘It’s reasonable to think Aleksic’s death was linked to the ‘human safari’ probe and that Serbian intelligence was involved’.
Margetic appealed to war crimes prosecutors to stop any cremation or burial planned for Aleksic, and hold a post-mortem to check the body for poison.
His death also came shortly after a macabre video resurfaced of a car allegedly used by him featuring a human skull on the bonnet – said to be extracted from a Bosnian corpse – wearing a UN helmet.
